Other People's Writing

* Every Mad Men episode is ranked by Buzzfeed's Kate Aurthur.  I don't have any serious problems with the order here (the top four are unimpeachable) though of course, I have quibbles!  The pilot, "The Crash" and a couple of the S7.5 episodes are too high, "At The Codfish Ball" and "Souvenir" are way too low (c'mon, Don & Betty in Rome barely cracks the top eighty?!?!) and "The Strategy" would've been my #5.

* "I woke up at the moment that the miracle occurred/A film that made some sense of all the world."  Rob Bricken of io9.com is incredulous that a movie like Mad Max: Fury Road both actually managed to get made in the first place, and that it ended up being so awesome.  Bricken is right, this movie is the best.  Will Hollywood learn a lesson that the best way to make a good movie is just to let a creative director so whatever they HA HA HA I couldn't even finish that without breaking up.

* Speaking of things that seem impossible, NBC Sports' Joe Posnanski chronicles how Steph Curry developed into a thoroughly unlikely NBA superstar.

* And speaking of NBC, let's get really inside-baseball with this fascinating look at how NBC's news department has been steadily declining for years, culminating in the Brian Williams scandal.  Vanity Fair's Bryan Burrough really outdoes himself with some fine reporting here that breaks down exactly how things have been going from bad to worse at the ol' Peacock.  Jack Donaghy would never have stood for this, that's for certain.

* Nina Simone is a musical legend who has somewhat been forgotten to history, though this piece from Grantland's Brian Phillips reminds us that her music and social conscience are as relevant today as ever.

* Oral history time!  Alan Siegel of the Onion's AV Club delves into the creation of the Simpsons' legendary "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" two-part cliffhanger.  You may all remember the episodes as the only reason my generation knows who Tito Puente is.